What is your definition of an expat?

[Crema Americana]

How about we take it back to the old Graham Green school of thinking and you're an expat when you frequent the British embassy, Council or Club parties and drink Pimms or G&Ts on at least a daily basis??

lol Now that's my idea of an expat! Owning a bar and lots of drinking with fellow expats. Loud, sticking to their own, and complaining about the locals!

There's a big difference between visiting another country temporarily, and actually moving to another country indefinitely. Expats settle for a while and get to know the people and culture (some blending in and accepting it better than others.) I love the tourists that come here for a month or two and think they have it all figured out.

I'd say the expat is usually in search of love or adventure, or just settles down in a foreign country of their choosing - different than an immigrant that moves out of necessity or a tourist that is just passing through. People on long term work or study assignments I'd consider to be expats as well.

 

[HeyBA]

For me the definition is qualitative rather than quantitative: if a person is here long enough that they must invest in real relationships, they are an expat.

Tourists/travelers/visitors don't care who they are with as long as they have activity partners. This also leads them to be unreliable. Out of practicality rather than snobbery, I've learned to scrutinize how long someone is here for before investing any time in them.

So this definition is subjective. If I'll be here two years, but you have lived here for ten years and are married with kids, maybe you've lived through a financial crisis, a divorce, and a nasty property dispute, well I'm probably not an expat to you. If I'll be here for two years, but you're spending two months here before you're on to Brazil, well, I'm the expat. That's probably how it works in real life.

 

[MizzMarr]

For me, though I've been here going on six years, I do not consider myself a true "ex-pat" because I never have felt I truly belonged here nor was I going to consider Argentina a place of true permanent residency. I think I'd finally feel like an expat when I found a place outside of my home country (which oddly no longer truly feels like I truly belong to, either) where I considered and felt like it was "home" to me and a real sense of belonging. My dream is to spend part time in the States and part time somewhere else... hopefully that somewhere else will become a true home to me, but I've yet to find it! For now, home is where I pet my cat

But I guess the definition is pretty arbitrary, as living outside of my home country for nearly six years classifies me "officially" as an expat.

 

[citygirl]

I'm not judging people and I'm not implying that being here for a year isn't a great, life-changing experience. Just not sure it's an expatriate experience (IMO) As I said originally, just random musings.

And yes, as someone else mentioned, while I always enjoy meeting people that are here for shorter time peridods, I don't really invest in a friendship with them. It's simply too difficult. It's fun to go out, have a drink or dinner with those people but there is a limit. After 90% of my original friends left, I just couldn't handle it anymore. Now I see far fewer people but the ones I spend time with are the ones who have a life here.

Now where do I find the Pimms

 

[fifs2]

Now where do I find the Pimms[/quote]


In true Bsas style the Pimms is easy to fine but Borage leaves???? Now thats something I did find in Yemen when I was an "expat"..no toilet paper but lots of borage leaves for Pimms and croquet...I kid you not!

 

[starlucia]

I was going to post a new thread nut I found this old one so I am going to revive it for a quick question.

So I take inmigrant and expats are not the same thing?

Why is it that people referr to gringos, europeans and the like as "expats" but to bolivians,paraguayans, etc as "inmigrants"?

When I asked a porteno to quickly tell me a place they relate to "expats" he told me "Recoleta" and when I said inmigrant he said "villa miseria".

Hee, I've thought about this myself. "Immigrant" historically has the connotation of a poor, unprivileged person moving to another country in search of a better life. Doesn't matter where in the world you are, First Worlders residing abroad (even if they have NO intention of ever returning home) will always refer to themselves as "expats." But frankly? I'm sorry, all of those unemployed, 25-year-old Americans and Brits moving to BA to live on tourist visas and work en negro -- they're illegal immigrants, too.

 

[Amargo]

expat=someone who has money (otherwise he/she could have not afford the flight to BA), probably has an ipad and think he/she is cool enough to distantiate himself/herself from the negative connotations of the word 'immigrant'
immigrant=someone poor, from a non-cool country (usually 3rd World), no ipad and who has enough other preocupations in life to care about being called immigrant or expat. And is not bitching all the time about how much better everything back at home is

 

[rrptownley]

I wouldn´t call myself an Expat, Traveller, Tourist, Local or immigrant (nor misplaced).

I think the only word that covers it, is what a Boer would call, a Soutpiel.

 

[citymike]

Tourists/travelers/visitors don't care who they are with as long as they have activity partners. This also leads them to be unreliable. Out of practicality rather than snobbery, I've learned to scrutinize how long someone is here for before investing any time in them.

I suppose it's how you socialise that makes you take that attitude. I socialise in bars and the only investment I make is a smile and a chat. I find people passing through are far more friendly. When someone is here for a while, and especially when they have been here longer than I have they tend to treat me suspiciously, as if given the slightest chance I will be humping their pet dog.

Or maybe I'm just a bit sensitive ;-)

 

[Gringoboy]

I've never liked the word expat anyway.
Just consider myself as a Welshman abroad, albeit I'm here for the long haul